Following the explosive revelation on Channel 2 TV, that central Jewish and Arab leftist activists have a policy of handing over to the Palestinian Authority (PA) Arabs who approach them and wish to sell land to Jews, leftists have been claiming that the PA does not execute such people.

The denials are meant to refute claims made by the central figure in the televised investigative piece, Ta’ayush’s Ezra Nawi, who boasted on hidden camera that the men he handed over to the PA were tortured and then executed. Leftist journalist Haggai Matar published an article that claimed that Nawi was just making empty boasts, and that while Ramallah’s courts do mete death sentences to people who sell land to Jews, PA Chairman Mahmoud Abbas has not approved the carrying out of such sentences since 2005.

An investigative report by Akiva Bigman on the nationalist-conservative Mida website has found that this is a lie. While it is true that Abbas has not signed death warrants since 2005, the executions are carried out unofficially.

The latest such execution that Mida knows about took place in 2012. According to the report, a man was thrown from the third floor window of the Ramallah jail, and died. While the PA claimed he had killed himself, sources “in the know” are convinced that he was thrown to his death. His crime was selling land to Jews.

Bigman claims that many other unofficial executions have taken place.

He described his sources as people who are involved in various aspects of land deals in the Judea and Samaria, and “who come into daily contact with the PA’s crimes.” One way of killing the land sellers, they explained, is to put them in the same cell with hardened murderers. “Everyone knows what is about to happen,” a source said. “Some people were murdered this way in the Jericho jail, in cases that I have knowledge of.”

Another victim, Muhammad al-Hawaa, was shot to death on the street in Jericho for selling land to Jewish NGO Elad in 2006. Ha’aretz reported the murder at the time and noted that he was killed by Fatah for selling land to Jews.

The people who are arrested on suspicion of selling land to Jews are cruelly tortured, a source said. “They are hanged upside down, cigarettes are extinguished on their skin, they are humiliated very thoroughly.”

The prisoners jailed for selling land to Jews who are not executed remain in jail indefinitely, awaiting execution. They become the scum of the prison and are very cruelly humiliated, according to the sources. In addition, their relatives are also punished. “The family walks past and in a line and the entire village spits on them,” a source said.

Security sources estimated that several dozen Arabs are in PA jails for selling land to Jews and that at least five were killed in the last decade alone.